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Will Smith: Social Media Might Prevent a New Generation of Movie Stars

"If I had to grow up in the age of the Internet and Twitter, there’d be a very, very different story that would be written."

Will Smith reflected on how his career may have been different in this new age of social media, while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg for his Awards Chatter podcast.

"If I had to grow up in the age of the Internet and Twitter, there’d be a very, very different story that would be written," said Smith. "Fortunately, most of my career, I was shielded from that level of scrutiny. There actually was privacy. There was actually the ability to create mystery."

The actor said that in his opinion, "movie stars need mystery."

Elaborating, he said, "People need to not know in order to come to see you in a movie theater, whereas music is slightly different. People want to know you. They want to feel connected to you."

Without Twitter and Facebook, Smith was able to craft his career differently than current actors do. "I had the opportunity to create the level of mystery in my life that it takes to be a movie star," he said. "I’d be really interested to see if there will be any new movie stars. It’s a difficult thing to create."